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<chapter id="writing-style">
<title>Writing style</title>
<para>In order to promote consistency between the myriad authors of the
FreeBSD documentation, some guidelines have been drawn up for authors to
follow.</para>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>Use American English spelling</term>
<listitem>
<para>There are several variants of English, with different spellings
for the same word. Where spellings differ, use the American English
variant. <quote>color</quote>, not <quote>colour</quote>,
<quote>rationalize</quote>, not <quote>rationalise</quote>, and so
on.</para>
<note>
<para>The use of British English may be accepted in the case
of a contributed article, however the spelling must be
consistent within the whole document. The other documents
such as books, web site, manual pages, etc. will have to use
American English.</para>
</note>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Do not use contractions</term>
<listitem>
<para>Do not use contractions. Always spell the phrase out in full.
<quote>Don't use contractions</quote> would be wrong.</para>
<para>Avoiding contractions makes for a more formal tone, is more
precise, and is slightly easier for translators.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Use the serial comma</term>
<listitem>
<para>In a list of items within a paragraph, separate each item from
the others with a comma. Separate the last item from the others with
a comma and the word <quote>and</quote>.</para>
<para>For example, look at the following:</para>
<blockquote>
<para>This is a list of one, two and three items.</para>
</blockquote>
<para>Is this a list of three items, <quote>one</quote>,
<quote>two</quote>, and <quote>three</quote>, or a list of two items,
<quote>one</quote> and <quote>two and three</quote>?</para>
<para>It is better to be explicit and include a serial comma:</para>
<blockquote>
<para>This is a list of one, two, and three items.</para>
</blockquote>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Avoid redundant phrases</term>
<listitem>
<para>Try not to use redundant phrases. In particular, <quote>the
command</quote>, <quote>the file</quote>, and <quote>man
command</quote> are probably redundant.</para>
<para>These two examples show this for commands. The second example
is preferred.</para>
<informalexample>
<para>Use the command <command>cvsup</command> to update your
sources.</para>
</informalexample>
<informalexample>
<para>Use <command>cvsup</command> to update your sources.</para>
</informalexample>
<para>These two examples show this for filenames. The second example
is preferred.</para>
<informalexample>
<para>… in the filename
<filename>/etc/rc.local</filename>…</para>
</informalexample>
<informalexample>
<para>… in
<filename>/etc/rc.local</filename>…</para>
</informalexample>
<para>These two examples show this for manual references. The second
example is preferred (the second example uses
<sgmltag>citerefentry</sgmltag>).</para>
<informalexample>
<para>See <command>man csh</command> for more
information.</para>
</informalexample>
<informalexample>
<para>See &man.csh.1;.</para>
</informalexample>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Two spaces at the end of sentences</term>
<listitem>
<para>Always use two spaces at the end of sentences, as this
improves readability, and eases use of tools such as
<application>Emacs</application>.</para>
<para>While it may be argued that a capital letter following
a period denotes a new sentence, this is not the case, especially
in name usage. <quote>Jordan K. Hubbard</quote> is a good
example; it has a capital <literal>H</literal> following a
period and a space, and there certainly is not a new sentence
there.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
<para>For more information about writing style, see <ulink
url="http://www.bartleby.com/141/">Elements of
Style</ulink>, by William Strunk.</para>
<sect1 id="writing-style-guide">
<title>Style guide</title>
<para>To keep the source for the Handbook consistent when many different
people are editing it, please follow these style conventions.</para>
<sect2>
<title>Letter case</title>
<para>Tags are entered in lower case, <literal><para></literal>,
<emphasis>not</emphasis> <literal><PARA></literal>.</para>
<para>Text that appears in SGML contexts is generally written in upper
case, <literal><!ENTITY…></literal>, and
<literal><!DOCTYPE…></literal>, <emphasis>not</emphasis>
<literal><!entity…></literal> and
<literal><!doctype…></literal>.</para>
</sect2>
<sect2>
<title>Acronyms</title>
<para>Acronyms should generally be spelled out the first time
they appear in a book, as in: "Network Time Protocol (<acronym
role="Network Time Protocol">NTP</acronym>)." After the
acronym has been defined, you should generally use the acronym
only (not the whole term, unless it makes more sense
contextually to use the whole term). Usually, acronyms are
defined only one per book. But if you prefer, you can also
define them the first time they appear in each chapter.</para>
<para>The first three uses of an acronym should be enclosed in
<acronym> tags, with a <literal>role</literal> attribute
with the full term defined. This allows a link to the
glossary to be created, and for mouseovers to be rendered with
the fully expanded term.</para>
</sect2>
<sect2>
<title>Indentation</title>
<para>Each file starts with indentation set at column 0,
<emphasis>regardless</emphasis> of the indentation level of the file
which might contain this one.</para>
<para>Opening tags increase the indentation level by 2 spaces.
Closing tags decrease the indentation level by 2 spaces. Blocks
of 8 spaces at the start of a line should be replaced with a tab.
Do not use
spaces in front of tabs, and do not add extraneous whitespace at the
end of a line. Content
within elements should be indented by two spaces if the content runs
over more than one line.</para>
<para>For example, the source for this section looks something
like:</para>
<programlisting><![ CDATA [+--- This is column 0
V
<chapter>
<title>...</title>
<sect1>
<title>...</title>
<sect2>
<title>Indentation</title>
<para>Each file starts with indentation set at column 0,
<emphasis>regardless</emphasis> of the indentation level of the file
which might contain this one.</para>
...
</sect2>
</sect1>
</chapter>]]></programlisting>
<para>If you use <application>Emacs</application> or
<application>XEmacs</application> to edit the files then
<literal>sgml-mode</literal> should be loaded automatically, and the
<application>Emacs</application> local variables at the bottom of each file should enforce these
styles.</para>
<para><application>Vim</application> users might want to configure
their editor with:</para>
<programlisting>augroup sgmledit
autocmd FileType sgml set formatoptions=cq2l " Special formatting options
autocmd FileType sgml set textwidth=70 " Wrap lines at 70 columns
autocmd FileType sgml set shiftwidth=2 " Automatically indent
autocmd FileType sgml set softtabstop=2 " Tab key indents 2 spaces
autocmd FileType sgml set tabstop=8 " Replace 8 spaces with a tab
autocmd FileType sgml set autoindent " Automatic indentation
augroup END</programlisting>
</sect2>
<sect2>
<title>Tag style</title>
<sect3>
<title>Tag spacing</title>
<para>Tags that start at the same indent as a previous tag
should be separated by a blank line, and those that are not
at the same indent as a previous tag should not:</para>
<informalexample>
<programlisting><![ CDATA [<article>
<articleinfo>
<title>NIS</title>
<pubdate>October 1999</pubdate>
<abstract>
<para>...
...
...</para>
</abstract>
</articleinfo>
<sect1>
<title>...</title>
<para>...</para>
</sect1>
<sect1>
<title>...</title>
<para>...</para>
</sect1>
</article>]]></programlisting>
</informalexample>
</sect3>
<sect3>
<title>Separating tags</title>
<para>Tags like <sgmltag>itemizedlist</sgmltag> which will
always have further tags inside them, and in fact do not take
character data themselves, are always on a line by
themselves.</para>
<para>Tags like <sgmltag>para</sgmltag> and
<sgmltag>term</sgmltag> do not need other tags to contain
normal character data, and their contents begin immediately
after the tag, <emphasis>on the same line</emphasis>.</para>
<para>The same applies to when these two types of tags
close.</para>
<para>This leads to an obvious problem when mixing these
tags.</para>
<para>When a starting tag which cannot contain character data
directly follows a tag of the type that requires other tags
within it to use character data, they are on separate lines.
The second tag should be properly indented.</para>
<para>When a tag which can contain character data closes
directly after a tag which cannot contain character data
closes, they co-exist on the same line.</para>
</sect3>
</sect2>
<sect2>
<title>White space changes</title>
<para>When committing changes, <emphasis>do not commit changes to the
content at the same time as changes to the
formatting</emphasis>.</para>
<para>This is so that the teams that convert the Handbook to other
languages can quickly see what content has actually changed in your
commit, without having to decide whether a line has changed because of
the content, or just because it has been refilled.</para>
<para>For example, if you have added two sentences to a paragraph, such
that the line lengths on the paragraph now go over 80 columns, first
commit your change with the too-long line lengths. Then fix the line
wrapping, and commit this second change. In the commit message for
the second change, be sure to indicate that this is a whitespace-only
change, and that the translation team can ignore it.</para>
</sect2>
<sect2>
<title>Nonbreaking space</title>
<para>Avoid line breaks in places where they look ugly
or make it difficult to follow a sentence. Line breaks depend
on the width of the chosen output medium. In particular, viewing
the HTML documentation with a text browser can lead to badly
formatted paragraphs like the next one:</para>
<literallayout class="monospaced">Data capacity ranges from 40 MB to 15
GB. Hardware compression …</literallayout>
<para>The general entity <literal>&nbsp;</literal> prohibits
line breaks between parts belonging together. Use nonbreaking
spaces in the following places:</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>between numbers and units:</para>
<programlisting><![ CDATA [57600 bps]]></programlisting>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>between program names and version numbers:</para>
<programlisting><![ CDATA [FreeBSD 4.7]]></programlisting>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>between multiword names (use with caution when applying this
to more than 3-4 word names like <quote>The FreeBSD Brazilian
Portuguese Documentation Project</quote>):</para>
<programlisting><![ CDATA [Sun Microsystems]]></programlisting>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</sect2>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="writing-style-word-list">
<title>Word list</title>
<para>The following is a small list of words spelled the way they
should be used in the FreeBSD Documentation Project. If the
word you are looking for is not in this list, then please
consult the <ulink
url="http://www.oreilly.com/oreilly/author/stylesheet.html">O'Reilly
word list</ulink>.</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>2.2.X</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>4.X-STABLE</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>CD-ROM</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>DoS <emphasis>(Denial of Service)</emphasis> </para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Ports Collection</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>IPsec</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Internet</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>MHz</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Soft Updates</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Unix</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>disk label</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>email</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>file system</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>manual page</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>mail server</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>name server</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>null-modem</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>web server</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</sect1>
</chapter>
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